The Canadian Investor - Can TELUS’ New CEO Save Investors From a Dividend Cut?

Episode Date: February 19, 2026

In this news and earnings episode, Simon and Dan break down Canada’s January CPI print and why food inflation still feels painfully high despite softer headline numbers. They dig into TELUS’ rough quarter, the surprise CEO change, and what it means for leverage, dividends, and long-term turnaround prospects. The guys also cover Shopify’s strong Q4 results and growing AI integration—discussing whether AI is a real threat or a long-term tailwind for the platform—before wrapping up with Robinhood’s explosive growth in options and crypto trading, and why the business increasingly looks more like a casino than a traditional brokerage. Along the way, they touch on grocery inflation, telecom price wars, valuation risks in high-multiple stocks, and what today’s speculative behavior could mean for markets going forward. Tickers discussed: T.TO, SHOP, HOOD, DOL.TO, L.TO Watch the full video on Our New Youtube Channel! Check out our portfolio by going to Jointci.com Our Website Canadian Investor Podcast Network Twitter: @cdn_investing Simon’s twitter: @Fiat_Iceberg Braden’s twitter: @BradoCapital Dan’s Twitter: @stocktrades_ca Want to learn more about Real Estate Investing? Check out the Canadian Real Estate Investor Podcast! Apple Podcast - The Canadian Real Estate Investor  Spotify - The Canadian Real Estate Investor  Web player - The Canadian Real Estate Investor Asset Allocation ETFs | BMO Global Asset Management Sign up for Fiscal.ai for free to get easy access to global stock coverage and powerful AI investing tools. Register for EQ Bank, the seamless digital banking experience with better rates and no nonsense.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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there's going to be some great opportunities for investors this has to be one of the biggest quarters i've seen from this company in quite some time Welcome to the Canadian investor podcast. I'm back with Dan Kent. We are back for a news and earnings episode. Actually, the first one of two news and earnings will be doing two this week because, again, earnings is in full force, so it should be fun. We are recording that while Canada is playing Czechia in the quarterfinals. So I guess we'll see whether the country is in revolt or not, because I think it's down, they're down to one as we're recording this. Yeah, they're losing. That will not be good if they lose, but, probably by the end of all our recordings, we'll know. But yeah, I think we had a lot of positive reaction from the bonus episode we did last week. So may as well keep it rolling while there's plenty to talk about. Exactly. And for the release time, we'll probably be releasing around 3, 4 p.m. Eastern time.

So yeah, just in time for those commuting on a Friday. So it'll be released then. Or if you can't listen to it on Friday, you'll be able to listen to it over the weekend before the Monday release. So be on the lookout for that. So let's get started. The first thing here that we wanted to talk about because it is, it's more on the macro side, that's for sure, but it still impacts people a whole lot. So it's Canadian CPI for January that came out. Headline CPI actually came in softer than expected at 2.3%.

Just wanted to mention, though, here, a couple of things to keep in mind. First, it might have actually been lower than that if last year there wasn't the tax holiday, which is kind of, you know, Interesting, right? If we remember, so that went from mid-December to mid-February last year with the Trudeau government. So that, the base, there's definitely some base effects in line here. But I think it's also important because people might be listening to this and say, well, I don't feel it. Like, I feel like prices are going up. And I think I feel it too. And I'm pretty sure I'm, you tell me whether you feel it or not. But for the most part of what, what I think people are noticing is we saw inflation rise so quick. in the aftermath of COVID in 2021 and early 2022. And those elevated prices, sure, it's a 2% increase year over year and whatnot, but it's that increase still over these elevated prices. And I think people are still a bit shell-shocked to see some of the prices. They see whether they go at the grocery store or whatever they buy, right?

And I mean, groceries are pretty much the one thing that hits everybody. Like, you're never going to avoid it. There's a lot of things in inflation that, you know, might not impact you. But, you know, when you think about shelter, you think about food, like, that's kind of things that hit everybody. Probably the hardest would be like the lower income people, because when that food basket starts to make up more of your, you know, discretionary income, like your aftertax income, it hits even more. And I mean, yeah, grocery prices are insane. Like even we had the twins, obviously, and we're going through like $60 in formula every two days. Every two and a half days.

It's a preview for when they're teenagers, two boys. Yeah, exactly. It's going to be expensive. But no, exactly. I think people are feeling the pinch. Salaries as just not kept up with inflation. I think that's just a reality of things. So what pulled down aside from those base effects from the tax holiday?

So gasoline prices were the largest contributor to lowering the headline numbers. It was down 16.7% year, but was up slightly versus December. And keep in mind, again, those base effects, they have a big impact. Overall, food prices were up 7.3% year over year. However, food purchase from store was up 4.8%. So grocery store, for example. The difference would be attributed in large parts, again, from those base effects for food purchase from a restaurant. because this was impacted by the tax holiday last year,

the increase in food prices for a restaurant was 12.3%. Not surprising if you factor in the taxes there and the lag there of last year. However, if you look at the increase of month over month, from December to January, it was 0.5%. And base effects don't matter here because it was December 2025 to January 26. If you annualize that, you're looking at 12% inflation. sorry, 6% inflation.

So it is not nothing. And I think that is one alarming part. We've seen food inflation go up, despite them saying that one of the downwards contributor were fresh food, which is nice. But when you're looking at overall food inflation in the vicinity of 6% year to year, that affects everyone. And like you said,

people that are the lowest income households, even more. So it is definitely alarming. and hopefully that rectifies because unfortunately I think if this continues being like this high, you're going to start seeing some problems in like the social in our society. Like you're going to see some major problem if that doesn't get rectified. So I wanted to mention that aside from that shelter costs continue to disinflate. They rose 1.7% you over year.

Disinflate means the rate of inflation is actually, slowing down, but it is still going up. And of course, the other thing is mortgage interest costs are also rising at a slower pace. Services inflation keeps slowing down at 3.4% year. And the core measure inflation, which is still shows as the Bank of Canada definition, we'll see if they come out with that dashboard. That one has been trending down again, CPI median, which takes the middle number of the increases and looks at what it is. That one is 2.5%. And just for context, it's been going down steadily since September, which was 3.1%. And CPI trim at 2.4. And again, it was 3.1 back in September. And CPI trim, it just removes the extreme. So the biggest downwards contributors

and the biggest upwards contributor. Yeah, I mean, just inflation overall, if you look to like some of the best performing Canadian large cap stocks over the last five years, like probably La Blah, Dollarama. Yeah. And I mean, this is, this is like a direct result of stuff like this. So if you're kind of wondering if there's still tailwinds there, 6% food inflation is definitely bullish for, you know, discounters like La Blah and Dollarama. But yeah, it's. And even then, like, even if you get it back to a two or three percent level, like that's just, you know, prices aren't going down. They're just going up at a lower rate. So exactly.

They kind of got to get a hold of this. I haven't really noticed it all that much, but that's just me, obviously. I've noticed it on certain items, I would say. I think we talked about it. I know if there's vegetarians or vegans, they won't know this, but bacon. So I don't know if it's pork across, but bacon has been one that has been really surprising. I mean, I think it's just double in price in the last couple of years, if I'm being truly honest. Yeah.

Yeah. And I mean, beef is crazy too. But yeah, it's rough because this is, again, like, what hits everybody the most. Yeah, exactly. Having cash on hand is essential for any business. Traditional business accounts hit you with high fees while paying little to no interest on the cash you need for day-to-day operations. That was our experience, too, until we switched to the new EQ Bank business account. Now, every dollar earns high interest with no monthly fees and no minimum balance.

You also get free everyday transactions like EFTs, bill payments, mobile check deposits, and 50 outgoing and 100 incoming free interackey transfers. And to sign up, quick and fully online, no branch visits because, let's be honest, no business owner has time for that. We use it for our own business and it's the first account that actually helps our money work harder while keeping operations simple. Check it out today at eCubank.ca slash business. My wife and I are currently planning a big summer trip to the Maritimes and our daughter will be visiting Halifax for the very first time. We're looking for a place on Airbnb right near the water so she can wake up and see the ocean every morning.

We can already picture ourselves exploring the waterfront and coming back to a cozy house to cook a family dinner or for a quick change of clothes and head to a local family-friendly seafood restaurant. Finding the perfect home base is making the whole trip feel real. It also got us thinking about our own place while we're away. If another family's home can be the backdrop for our first maritime adventure, maybe ours could be that for someone else. Hosting our home on Airbnb would let travelers make their own memories in our beautiful neighborhood,

while giving us extra money to put towards all those lobster rolls in Alifax. And the nice thing is the flexibility. We can decide to host our home only when it works for our schedule. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.ca. slash host. Calling all DIY, do-it-yourself investors, Blossom is an essential app for you. It has been blowing up with now more than 50,000,

thousand Canadians plus and growing who are using the app. Every time I go on there, I am shocked. The engagement is amazing. This is a really vibrant community that they're building. And people share their portfolios, their trades, their investment ideas in real time. And it's all built on the concept of transparency because brokerage accounts are linked. And then once you link your brokerage account, you can get in-depth portfolio insights, track your dividends. And there's other stuff like learning duolingo style education lessons that are completely free. You can search up Blossom Social in the app store and join the community today. I'm on there. I encourage you go on there and follow me, search me up, some of the YouTubers and influencers and podcasters that you might know,

I bet you they're already on there. People are just on there talking, sharing their investment ideas, and using the analytics tools. So go ahead, blossom social in the app store, and I'll see you there. So let's move on here to a name that, I don't know, is it being impacted by inflation? I probably guess so because they can't keep up with those prices, I would assume, but Tellis. So you want to go over their earnings? I know the big talk about Tellus is, are they going to end up having to do what Bell did in terms of cutting the dividend or not? So do you want to go over that?

Yeah, I know we had that segment that would have been what a couple weeks ago where we kind of talked as to whether or not TELUS would be going down the same road as Bell. It was a pretty interesting quarter for TELUS from a lot of standpoints. I think the next few quarters are going to be pretty pivotal because, you know, they're going to give some sort of indication in regards to the safety of the dividend, but also just kind of trying to get out of the rut the company's been in operationally. The headline earnings weren't all that good. So earnings and, or sorry, earnings per share and revenue came in below estimates.

The bulk of the impact they mentioned was higher financing costs, which is something that's plagued telecom companies for, you know, ever since rates started going up in what that would have been in 2022, 2023. But then they mentioned some higher one-off cost to reintegrate Telas Digital. That was a company they spun out. It would have been in 2021 and then bought it back for like, I don't know, it had to be 80, 90% less. Kind of a genius move by Tellis, but not so much for people who ended up buying. buying Telas Digital, which myself included. They still seem to be leading from an industry standpoint. So net additions are the highest among any telecom.

They added more than 1.1 million net additions this year, which would have been, that's across everything, I'm pretty sure. So like cable, security, internet, or, yeah, internet, cell phones, things like that. Churn rates are also industry leading at 0.97. So this would be their monthly churn rate. This isn't an annual churn rate. They're not losing only one out of 100 every year. A 1% monthly churn works out to be around 11.5 on an annual basis, which means, you know,

88.5% of the customer base is sticking ARPU, average revenue per user, still struggling, down 1.6%. The company did mention that this is best in class and is kind of best in terms of sequential improvement. So prices are declining the least at TELUS out of all the three. Which is, yeah, I don't think that's that good of news for shareholders. And I'm showing here for Joint TCI. Essentially, Arpoo peaked back in 2016. And then, you know, they had little peaks here and there, but it's been on the steady decline for a couple of years now since 2020.

At 3, the average revenue per user. So Arpoo was around six, let's just say, $61 if you round that up. And now it's 57. Yeah. So it is, there's definitely pressure. we did an episode on that. If you're a customer, you can play them against each other. There's not that same population growth.

So if they want to show increased subscribers, they essentially have to make them fight for your business. That's what it is. You have the control. Like they, it's better for them with fixed assets to acquire you or keep you at a discounted price than lose you or not acquiring you because they have those fixed expenses. So even if you and.

up making them a bit less money, it's still more money than they would have if they're, you're not there. If they lost you. Yeah, exactly. And I mean, you can, yeah, you can play them against each other. And often, even if the telecom company tells you, no, we won't match and you switch, they'll call you back and like tell you that, yeah, because you have like a 30 day window once you sign up somewhere else.

But, I mean, the rate of decline, I guess, is slowing. So, I mean, maybe, because there was a big price war over the last few years here, right? Like from 20, 23. and beyond. It was an constant fight between these three telecom companies to get your business, plus like the smaller subsidiaries

they have like, I don't know what, kudo and all that type of stuff, Fido. But now it seems like it's slowing a bit, but I don't think it's done. When we look to free cash flow, that came in ahead of guidance

on the year, just slightly. The major news on the quarter, which it would be the CEO, so a new CEO in 2026 guidance. I'll go over guidance first as it'll kind of blend everything together. But revenue and adjusted EBITA are going to grow, well, expected to grow 2 to 4%,

10% decline in capital expenditures, free cash flow growth of 10% and a leverage ratio, which would be their debt to adjusted EBTA, much like every other leverage ratio. That's going to, that's, they wanted to come in at 3.3x. And at the end of 2027, they want to get this down to 3x or better. Right now they sit at around 3.4. So they're not raising the dividend anymore. They mentioned it'll stay the same. And they mentioned that they will not grow the dividend until the share price better reflects growth prospects.

And they hit the leveraging targets. So whether that means they hit their 3.3x this year they'll start raising again. I have a feeling it's more along the lines of they need to get down to that 3x before they raise. I wouldn't expect any dividend growth here for multiple years. It makes no sense whatsoever. And again, when I talk about the CEO, it'll make a bit more sense. But in order to stop the dilution of shares and the added dividend payments from doing so, the drip program is going to be eliminated by 2028. So you're not going to be able to sign up for that and get, you know, reinvested shares for your dividends.

These drip programs are not good for the company. So eliminating it is kind of a no-brainer. The other notable news would be that Victor Big, is that how you say it, dodig, the old CIBC guy, doodage? I don't remember. Notage, I'm guessing. But he was the former CEO of CIBC is taking over. I think he was the CEO of CIBC from like, I think it was like 2012 to 2024, 2025. So Darren Entwistle, who had been tell us as CEO for 26 years.

So he was there a very long time is retiring in June. And there was no news about this. Like there was no like anticipation or anything. So it was pretty, it was pretty sudden. And the way the stock reacted, I don't really. think the market liked the news all that much. And I think it's interesting because this is a banking CEO coming into a telecom company. And, you know, while banking CEOs are forced to be pretty prudent, conservative, a lot of

these telecoms have pushed it to the absolute limits when it comes to dividends and debt. So I wonder if the market here thinks there'll be some substantial moves to get the company back into shape, have healthier coverage ratios, which again is good for the company over the long term. However, it probably pushes this into a longer term turnaround play versus kind of a quick recovery. Like, you'd have to think, like, does he come in and, and pretty much say that the dividend does need to be cut? I don't know. Because if they hit the free cash flow guidance they issued for 2026, the dividend should be covered for the most part by the end of the year. But you're talking like 99% payout ratio. Like, they're still effectively paying everything.

Do they, does a new CEO come in and suggest it, it needs to be. to kind of get it back into a more comfortable range, it'll kind of be interesting. But I mean, obviously when you have a 26 plus year CEO retiring all of a sudden and somebody from outside the space comes in, the market's probably going to be a bit worried, but pretty interesting quarter for them. Yeah, I mean, it would make sense, right? If you're bringing someone with a bit more kind of financial prudence and trying to make some cuts to get the financial house in order, that would definitely make some sense here. So no, I mean, the aligns with me. I really don't know if they'll be able to get the thing in order, though. Like, it is at the end of the day, there's a pressure on the

business. I think that's the biggest issue is, you know, until immigration starts picking back up and there's more people coming in wanting these services, I don't think they're going to stop fighting. And I, like, while you were going, I was just kind of comparing some prices between Intelis Rogers and Bell. And it's kind of crazy how much it's gone down. Like now you can get like I think 150 gigs per month. If you bring your own phone for like 60, 65 dollars, the advertised price. So you can probably have, I don't even have. I don't even pay that and I have the phone. Like I got a phone through them. Yeah. Yeah. And but it's that's the advertised price. So oftentimes you can actually like start talking with someone and get something even cheaper. So anyways,

It's just something I wanted to mention where like I can see it when I negotiated our internet and phone bills a bit cheaper in the fall. Like you were getting even less than it's being advertised and that was around Black Friday. So just to give people an idea. But anyways, that's it'll be interesting. I'm sure we'll hear a whole lot about it because it's a very popular company. All the telecos are in Canada because of that dividend. So I'm sure we'll have some updates on that. So let's move on to a company that does not pay a dividend, Shopify.

So revenue increased 31% to $3.7 billion for Q4. That was the highest in its history. Not really surprising, obviously, the Q4 quarter is always their highest quarter. So I think typically they end up, you know, hitting the highest revenue in history when you start looking at that quarter. So not something that I'm super surprised. but I was more curious to see and I'll talk about that what they were saying about AI

so first of all GMV so gross merchandise volume was up 31% to $224 billion year over year so very impressive Shopify keeps delivering there

Free Cashel was up 25% for the full year revenue in Q4 like I said was the highest in its history subscription solution revenue was 17% to just shy

of $800 million So think of this as the monthly base costs for using the platform. So you pay an amount to use the platform, but there's other solutions that you'll be billed depending on what you used. Or they're going to take a little take rate merchant solutions, which is part of that. Revenue was up 35% to $2.9 billion. And this is tied to GMV. So things like shop pay would fall in this bucket, for example.

Operating margins were up 60 basis point and were above 17% for the, first time ever for the quarter. What's really interesting, like I said, was the AI part of this. So orders from AI searches have increased 15fold since the start of 2025, which is interesting, although they did say it was coming off from a small base. So keep that in mind because it is true. Like even if I think about myself, I think it's been about a year where I started kind of shopping with AI sometimes, where I still go on Amazon, but sometimes if I'm buying

something a bit more expensive. or I'm trying to compare prices. I'll use AI to do that, but not surprising that it's increased. They continue to invest in AI to provide tools for merchants to make their operations more efficient. So they're definitely embracing it. They continue to have large brands joining the platform. So this is where I think Shopify may be a bit more resilient than some people are giving it credit for because if AI was really a threat, you would not get brands like GM,

L'Oreal, Curig, Dr. Pepper, just as an example of large brands joining the platform. And they had more brands like in previous quarters joining the platform as well.

So it's not like AI just became a thing with the release of Claude coding, right? Like a month ago. So just, I think that's a good indication that their platform

definitely has some resiliency here. Yeah, I think a lot of people are, they might be thinking to surface level in regards to Shopify. Like, yeah, it is very easy.

easy like I could probably go on cloud and replicate the storefront in like probably two prompts but that's really not like what makes Shopify valuable. I mean, they have you talked about that like LLM shopping like they're working with it's what are they with alphabet UCP. I can't remember universal commerce protocol or something like that where you're going to be able to go into Gemini and say I want to buy. you know, sneakers, budgets 150, use any like appropriate coupons you can find. And like you won't even have to leave Gemini to buy that item. And it's like Shopify will be the, you know, you probably won't see it. Like it'll be behind the scenes, but they're effectively going to be the processor like running those transactions. So I think people like saying that there's disruption here because of the, the storefronts and like maybe, you know, the little plugins that you can add once you get in there. Like, that's, that's like very, very minor, I guess. Yeah.

I don't see, I see them leveraging AI more than being disrupted by it. But. Well, that's what they mentioned on the call. So they had a few questions regarding AI agents if they could bypass Shopify's ability to monetize transaction. They said that Lelms don't bypass Shopify checkouts and the economics kind of remains the same for them. So that's, that was their answer to that question.

Yeah. I don't see it. But obviously the market doesn't think the same because what is it? It's down like 30 some percent. Yeah, it's definitely been hit. I mean, yeah, Shopify could be a combination of valuation too. Like it's not trading cheaply still after this. So sometimes people have to remember like, yeah, okay, the drawdown might look pretty big.

It's down. It's up today while we're recording around 9%. And it's down 22% over the last month despite that. but again, still trading at pretty nosebleed valuations. So you have to keep that in mind. As soon as you start putting a little bit of uncertainty, whether it's justified or not, maybe there is a little bit of justification to it. Maybe it's just the market repricing a little bit, the premium that they're willing to pay for Shopify

because of that incremental risk that's been added. Yeah, and I think once you get companies that are valued this high, like any sort of, even if it seems like the most meaningless news ever will cause a big re-rate in the multiple. Like, as you mentioned, it's up 8%. It seems to be moving like 5 plus percent every day. Yeah, yeah. It is crazy over the last while. Yeah.

Like if you're going to, if you're going to buy this one, you got to be, you got to be buying and holding. Yeah, just strap on your seatbell and enjoy the ride, right? So you just have to do that. But in terms of guidance, they're guiding for revenue growth in the low 30s for the next quarter. And again, I think it's just to finish up here, I think it's just a reflection of how expensive evaluations are for this company. So you just have to keep that in mind. And I know some people may have become desensitized to high valuations. But it's true. I mean, that's, I think, what almost we've been trained as investors over the last better part of a decade

now. You just have to keep in mind when you're buying these kind of valuation, no matter how good the story might be, doesn't take much for the market to, uh, you know, to, to create some gyrations in the stock, right? So. No. Definitely. I mean, when stocks get that expensive, yeah, it's once they start trading at like, you know, 50x EV Evita and like you, you kind of have to start asking a lot of questions. Because valuation, like over the course of, you know, one year, even like two, three years might not matter, but it eventually does. Eventually catches up. Yeah.

It will catch up, yeah. Having cash on hand is essential for any business. Traditional business accounts hit you with high fees while paying little to no interest on the cash you need for day-to-day operations. That was our experience too, until we switch to the new EQBank business account. Now, every dollar earns high interest with no monthly fees and no minimum balance.

You also get free everyday transactions like EFTs, bill payments, mobile check deposits, and 50 outgoing and 100 incoming free interackey transfers. And to sign up, quick and fully online, no branch visits because, let's be honest, no business owner has time for that. We use it for our own business and it's the first account that actually helps our money work harder while keeping operations simple. Check it out today at eCubank.ca slash business. My wife and I are currently planning a big summer trip to the Maritimes and our daughter will be visiting Halifax for the very first time. We're looking for a place on Airbnb right near the water so she can wake up and see the ocean every morning. We can already picture ourselves

exploring the waterfront and coming back to a cozy house to cook a family dinner or for a quick change of clothes and head to a local family-friendly seafood restaurant. Finding the perfect home base is making the whole trip feel real. It also got us thinking about our own place while we're away. If another family's home can be the backdrop for our first maritime adventure, maybe ours could be that for someone else. Hosting our home on Airbnb would let travelers make their own memories in our beautiful neighborhood, while giving us extra money to put towards all those lobster rolls in Alifax.

And the nice thing is the flexibility. We can decide to host our home only when it works for our schedule. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.ca slash host. Calling all DIY, do-it-yourself investors, Blossom is an essential app for you. It has been blowing up with now more than 50,000 Canadians plus and growing who are using the app. Every time I go on there, I am shocked. The engagement is amazing. This is a really vibrant community that they're building.

And people share their portfolios, their trades, their investment ideas in real time. And it's all built on the concept of transparency because brokerage accounts are linked. And then once you link your brokerage account, you can get in-depth portfolio insights, track your dividends. And there's other stuff like learning duolingo style education lessons that are completely free. You can search up Blossom Social in the app store and join the community today. on there. I encourage you go on there and follow me. Search me up. Some of the YouTubers and influencers and podcasters that you might know, I bet you they're already

on there. People are just on there talking, sharing their investment ideas and using the analytics tools. So go ahead. Blossom social in the app store and I'll see you there. Okay, let's move on here to another internet company, Robin Hood. It's been a while since we've talked about that one. So why don't you go over that? I'm interesting. Interested in what you have to say because I haven't looked at it in some time. I just noted like it had got, it's gotten beat up quite a bit over the last while. And I kind of, I call Robin Hood like the casino mast as a brokerage. Like it is, uh, that's effectively what it is.

So much of the company's revenue base is just generated by pure speculative assets. To give you an idea. So pre-COVID equities like this is transaction based revenue. So this is kind of money that Robin Hood is making while these. transactions are going on. So equity is made up around 30% of transactions, transaction based revenue, and crypto made up 5.5%. So now equities make up 11.4%. Crypto makes up 35% and options make up 42%. And then they have, it's crazy. And what they have, they have left over. So they have this other, they call it other transaction based revenue, which is the fastest growing.

segment of the company by a mile. And this includes things like their prediction markets, like their sports betting and things like that. In 2020, this segment produced two million in revenue and it's now over 300 million and is larger than its equities transaction volume. So like, I don't know. And in my opinion, this is not a brokerage. This is like, it's a gambling app, effectively. Like, in my opinion, I've never been a huge fan of it just primarily because of that. And I think like, it's kind of ironic because this company. named itself Robinhood as kind of a way of making investing accessible to all and, you know, funneling money from like, you know, the only the rich had access to investing

and, you know, kind of, you know, being that, yeah, that Robinhood. And now, like, if you want a quick way to funnel money from the poor to the wealthy, sports betting, options trading, all that type of stuff. So in terms of like the quarter headline numbers were huge, like revenue up 52% year over year, adjusted even. It was up 76%. Deposits increased 35%. And the company reported

its eighth straight quarter where it had inflows of 10 billion or more. So assets under custody are now $324 billion. So this is 70% higher than last year. And yeah, the company is, it's completely flipping the script. And instead of focusing on,

you know, and making investing more accessible to retail, they're kind of doubling and even tripling down on active trading. So they're launching AI trading assistance. And they're now launching Robin Hood Social, which is a community-based platform, which allows people to see sentiments, people's trades, all that type of stuff. So AI bots kind of accounts to follow active trading accounts. So, yeah, it's definitely, they're taking advantage of, I mean, great ways to make money, but

probably not great ways to make money. You know, when the cycle ends, And we've seen this in 2021. The company got wrecked. And despite just looking at it now, you can see for those watching on Joint TCI. So the option revenue has been just, that's the one in red that's been growing. So it went from around 121 million in September of 2023. And now it's close to tripled since. And then you're looking crypto has been a bit all over the place, but definitely has increased

quite a bit in the last four or five quarters. and then equities revenue, which is growing, but definitely much lower. You can see that options are really growing quickly. And unfortunately with Reddit and all that, and I'm pretty sure I don't want to be mean, but a lot of the options trader on Robin Hood are probably not necessarily the most sophisticated. You can be like, you can have a sophisticated trading strategy with options, but again, I'm not sure that's on Robin Hood. So it's a good reflection that probably with Reddit and all that, these zero day expiry options that are super risky.

Like there's probably a good chunk of that that that's coming from that revenue that's coming from that. Yeah. It's again, like I call it, it's pretty much a casino. Like with all with the activity that's going on, it's going to it's going to do very, very well when speculation is very high. crypto is high, options are high, like all that type of stuff. And despite like, you know, getting on with that, despite some pretty solid results, the stock is down. I think it's over 50% over the last four or five months. And if you start to look at like a price chart of Bitcoin over the same time frame, it starts to make a lot of sense.

They're pretty much lockstep on the way down. And if you think about it, like Bitcoin makes up a ton of this company's transaction-based revenue. So it's not just Bitcoin. It has to be crypto or crypto. Yeah, yeah, because they probably gamble even more on shitcoins. Yes, yeah. That's my knowledge of the crypto space. I just say Bitcoin when I really mean. I mean all crypto. Yeah, crypto currencies. But back when the meme stock bubble popped and the crypto scene kind of got ugly in 2021, 2021, 2022, Robin Hood's transaction-based revenue fell by over 45%. And this was with a more diverse, make.

So now the company is focused, much more focused on options activity and crypto activity. So I mean, to me, this kind of seems like the market is front running a decline in a lot of this speculative activity. So they probably don't want to get caught up in 2021 because, I mean, I think the stock, like Robin Hood had to be down like 90% from 2021 peaks. I'm pretty sure. It went from like 50 bucks to single digits at least. And they're not as concentrated on transactions.

based revenues as they were in 2021. So back in 2021, crypto options, like all that type of stuff, that transaction-based revenue was around 77% of total revenue, whereas now it's around 59, but I mean,

59% is still huge. I mean, no matter what the growth story here is, it's kind of hard for me to touch this one. It just generates way too much money on, like, non-investing related activities where, you know,

if the market, goes through a correction or a crash, which is an inevitability, like whether it happens now or two years from now, like all that type of stuff is going to dry up temporarily and it'll it'll probably hit them pretty hard. And I think the market's just kind of pricing this in right now. No, I think I would agree. So I think the volatility is it can be really beneficial if you're a good trader. But if you're not and you've been constantly betting on, you know, long constantly, which I think a lot of people have been trained over the last couple of years to do that. You have the potential to get completely wrecked. So yeah. And then, you know, good luck

trading if you have no money. So that's kind of where it stands. But I think this was a good overview. We're trying to keep these episodes around 35 minutes, especially when we do a couple just so they're easy to listen to. We don't ramble on for too long. So hopefully you enjoyed this part one of two, I guess, earnings episode that we'll be doing this week. Make sure you give us a five-star review on the platform you're listening on if you haven't done so before or recently. You'll be able to do so. It helps other people discover us.

Really appreciated. And we are probably going to do that live YouTube next week. So it's not been the most convenient in the last few weeks with what happened with my dog and also the shorter weeks here with my daughter not being in daycare family day. So I'm kind of got to get my. more done in a smaller amount of time. But next week, I think we'll be looking to do that. So stay tuned.

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